Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

Saturday, 7:30 P.M.

SOMETHING NIGGLED AT Aimée. She still hadn’t pinned it down by the time she turned her key in Leduc Detective’s door. Her stomach growled. The couscous felt like a long time ago.

René sat sipping an espresso at his desk, his expression distant. Saj shot her a knowing look. Winked.

“Let’s cut to the chase,” René said. “I want to get back to Meizi.”

“So you two talked …?” She let her words trail off.

A little smile appeared on his face. “You could say that.”

She pulled out the book she’d taken from Samour’s office and thumbed to the chapter he’d bookmarked. Medieval glassmaking guilds. She set it down and lifted a fresh demitasse of espresso from their machine.

“Meizi’s safe for now.” René’s brow furrowed. “But we’re not immigration. Aimée, unless you know a higher-up and can pull strings, I don’t know how to protect her.”

The only string she could pull was Morbier’s. The wrong one. And he didn’t answer the phone.

With Meizi safe in the hotel, she had some time to figure out what to do. Fleshing out the plan to keep Tso at bay would have to wait. Right now she needed to concentrate on Samour.

“There are complications, René.” She plopped a sugar cube in her cup, stirred, and took a sip. “Samour worked for the DST, died a patriot.”

“So now he’s a patriot?” René sputtered, spilling espresso on his tie.

“So they say.” She sat on the edge of her desk and outlined what she knew: Mademoiselle Samoukashian’s discovery of Pascal’s safety deposit box, his letter, his repeated messages to Coulade, something about a 14th-century file, Pascal’s ransacked apartment, her arrangement of digitizing holdings at the Conservatoire’s musée, Sacault’s recruiting her. She left out thinking about her mother.

“Both Samour’s great-aunt and the DST are clients now?” René said.

She handed him Mademoiselle Samoukashian’s check. “The DST’s concerned with Samour’s project, whatever it was. His great-aunt wants his murderer brought to justice.” Aimée paused in thought. “And the murderer wanted to silence Samour.”

“Didn’t the DST tell you what he worked on?” René asked. “Give you a lead?”

“Typical need-to-know basis,” she said. “Sacault, the fixer, played it safe.”

“How would you have known what to look for, if we didn’t have what Samour’s great-aunt showed you?”

Aimée shook her head. “Welcome to the gray world. You learn as you go and the rules change all the time. For once, we’re ahead of the DST, unless they know all this already. But I doubt it.” She pulled out her camera. “Check out the diagrams on Pascal’s courtyard walls. Anything strike you?”

“Context is everything,” René said, flicking through the digital photos.

“Ideas on how to decipher this?”

“A few.” He inserted a cable from his computer to the camera. “I’ll scan the photos. Enhance them.” He rubbed his hands together, almost in glee. “Only requires me to write a program to customize my search.” He savored a challenge.

She handed Saj the disc she’d copied from Coulade’s computer. “Pascal might have sent Coulade information, hidden in another file on Coulade’s desktop. See what you can find.”

Saj nodded.

“I installed René’s spyware on his computer, too,” she said. “Should be up and running.”

Saj inserted Coulade’s disc into his laptop. “Nice bugging job, Aimée.”

She tamped down her impatience. “We need to link the laptop I bring to the Conservatoire back here,” she said, downing her espresso.

“Done.” René pointed to the laptop on her desk.

Thank God René seemed back in form.

“Aimée, shouldn’t we ask Saj if he’s willing to get involved?”

Saj’s hacking skills had proved so valuable that the ministries he’d hacked had recruited instead of prosecuted him. And kept him on a leash.

“Bien sûr.” She hoped the irritation didn’t show in her voice. “Up to you, Saj.”

“In for a centime, in a for a kilo,” Saj said, “as my grand-mère would say.”

“Franc,” said René.

“Quoi, René?”

“In for a centime, in for a franc,” said René, lips pursed.

Saj stretched his arms over his head. “I’m implicated already since, at René’s insistence, I’m a salaried part-timer. Signed paperwork.”

René shook his head. “How else could I pay you?”

“Bon, no one here’s broken the law,” Aimée said, and took another sip. “Yet.”

Saj was clicking keys, scanning his computer screen, now a forest of Coulade’s icons.

“Not only do we keep tabs on the professeur, we can browse his domination fantasies and collection of erotica, circa 1930,” Saj said, with a tone of distaste. “Do I have to weed through everything?”

“We need to find out,” she said. “So oui, get weeding.”

A quick knock. Leduc Detective’s door opened to a gust of chill air from the hall. Martine Sitbon, Aimée’s best friend since the lycée, strode inside, dressed in black denim from the pointed toes of her high heels to her oversize newsboy cap.

“Mais alors, not ready, Aimée?” She leaned and kissed René on both cheeks. Winked at Saj. “We’re late. Hurry or nothing will be left on the rack.”

Now she remembered. The last day of January soldes.

René’s mouth turned down. “With all this work?”

“It’s once a year, René,” Martine said.

“Twice.” Saj grinned.

“July doesn’t count. That’s vacances.” Martine turned to Aimée, her red mouth set in a pout. “But this sale’s invitation only. Don’t you still need a dress for Sebastien’s wedding?”

Merde!

“With that bulging armoire full of clothes?” René said.

“That’s my work wardrobe, René!” Aimée shot him a look. “I’m the maid of honor.” She rooted under her desk for her vintage ostrich-skin Vuitton travel bag, a ten-franc bargain from the octogenarian in her building who’d nearly thrown it in the trash.

Saj nodded. “Fully loaded, I’d imagine? That bag’s lethal and guaranteed to clear crowded aisles.”

“Silk lingerie sales get ugly. You have no idea, Saj.” Martine tugged Aimée’s arm. “The line’s all the way around Les X.”

Les X lay underground in an old wine cavern, a mix of vintage, retro, and last season’s gently worn couture jumbled with Tati polyester and Monoprix seconds. A Left Bank fashionista secret.

“We’re pros,” Martine said. “With synchronization, it won’t take long.”

Aimée grabbed her coat. “Keep working. After I meet Pascal’s Gadz’Arts classmate, I’ll know more.”

The image of Jean-Luc floated in her mind. His warm smile, self-assurance—the antithesis of his geeky classmate, Samour. An unlikely friendship forged by class ties? Soon, she’d meet him for a drink and find out.

René frowned. “Check in before.”

Her cousin Sebastien had asked René to escort her to the wedding. She paused at the door.

“René, have you gotten your tuxedo alterations?”

René’s hand went to his mouth.